Ethiopia not ruling out troops return to Somalia

* Ethiopia awaiting response by international community

* Would not want to intervene alone

* Thinks government can resist hardline Islamist rebels

By Tsegaye Tadesse and Barry Malone

ADDIS ABABA, June 25 (Reuters) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has not ruled out sending troops to Somalia if the situation there worsens, but said there are no plans to intervene for now.

Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamist movement from the capital in which new President Sheik Sharif Ahmed played a role. That sparked an Islamist insurgency which is still raging despite the withdrawal of the soldiers in January this year.

"We do not want to find ourselves in a situation where a so-called Ethiopian horse would be trying to take the chestnut out of the fire on behalf of everybody else," Meles told a news conference late on Wednesday.

"And this horse being whipped by every idiot and his grandmother."